Teenagers learn how to defend against cyber attacks

by Emily Sugarman

Published
July 18, 2017

Unlike how most middle school and high school students would
spend their free summer days, 39 outstanding students from 23
different schools learned about the exciting world of cybersecurity
during a week-long camp at the University at Buffalo.

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Students participated in a variety of hands-on computer
activities throughout the week to absorb a wide range of
cybersecurity topics.

The campers had the rare opportunity to listen to enlightening,
interactive presentations from highly respected leaders in the
field of cybersecurity. Computer discipline officer Michael Behun
from the UB Computing Center presented on the basics of online
security and gave a demonstration on how smartphones can be hacked.
He also discussed ways to protect these various online assets from
viruses and malware.

Representatives from the FBI presented on the cybersecurity
threat landscape, while UB’s Nils Napp, an assistant
professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering,
gave a presentation on robotics with entertaining
demonstrations.

UB graduate students presented their own work and research,
which included machine handwriting recognition and fingerprint
identification. The campers engaged with the presenters’
software, bringing to light that experimenting and inventing is a
real possibility for them, now and in the future.

They visited CUBS (Center for Unified Biometrics and Sensors)
and the UB Nanosatellite lab to supplement their learning.

The campers' new, advanced knowledge prepared them for the final
day of camp, during which they attempted to defend a network of
computers from a simulated cyber attack. Each camper was
gifted a Raspberry Pi to help further develop their enthusiasm for
computer science and cybersecurity.

The UB Cybersecurity Camp was led by Laura Amo, visiting
assistant professor, and David Murray, clinical associate
professor, both from the School of Management, and Shambhu
Upadhyaya, director of the Center of Excellence in Information
Systems Assurance Research and Education (CEISARE) and a professor
in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, School of
Engineering and Applied Sciences.

In addition, contributions from several local industries and
organizations helped to make the event possible. These include
Avarint, Astronics Corp., CUBRC, Geico, Microsoft, Trove Predictive
Data Science and Yahoo!.